ORIGINS: UNIVERSE, LIFE, HUMANKIND, AND DARWIN

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We debate origins of the Universe, life, Earth, humans, religion, atheism, using common sense, evolution, cosmology, geology, archaeology, and other sciences, to repel biblical creationism and other religious beliefs.

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The homeless population in this counrty went from a rather small number to a huge and still growin number when Ronald Reagan decided to "mainstream" the mentally ill who were "healthy enough to live on heir own." They put thousands out on the streets by cutting funding. It was framed as a humanitarian issue, but of course it was just another way to shave expenses from the federal deficit to add to the defense budget.

Drew, I'm sure there are some cynical people who are just using religious language to manipulate the masses, and those people, although I think what they're doing is unethical, at least I can wrap my mind around and approach on a reasonable level expecting them to respond reasonably. The problem is, coming from an Evangelical background, I can tell you a disturbing number of people--no matter how wealthy or "educated"--genuinely do believe. And that is what I find scary and dangerous for America.

Regarding the mentally ill, my girlfriend is a mental health professional, and seeing her work, what people are going through, and the number of homeless who just can't work, I have become convinced that we need to, in some way, bring back the state hospital system.

I am "blessed to live in state that made Perry our longest serving governor and produced, in my opinion, the worst president we have ever seen. Texas was always a solidly democratic state until about thirty (read: Ronald Reagan) years ago. Now it is almost impossible to elect a democrat. Of course, the repubs have played a lot of dirty games with redistricting to help keep it that way.

Joan, do you think that people like Blankfein really believe that? Or are they just posturing to try and convince the gullible? It's disgusting either way, but I'm always curious about their sincerity.

And may God bless their bank accounts! Elizabeth Warren is slowly accumulating power and influence. Though it may be too late to chase these people out of Dodge for past deeds, maybe a warren lead group will put teeth in the regulations. Maybe with consequences for once. Reinstituting Glass-Steele (SP?) would go a long way to getting some good behaviour out of the banks as well. Being used as guinea pigs for theories designed to line their pockets is dangerous and foolhardy way to run, heck, not the American economy, but the world economy. It's not monopoly money.

"Then there are those that simply cannot function in society. They just can't."

This is where I feel that we are failing our citizens more than anywhere else. We stigmatize mental illness and emotional instability instead of sympathizing and offering the help that people need. My home state, Texas, is probably the worst example of this. Some other states offer better programs, but here there is virtually nothing available for them. This is especially true for men. Some people, as you said, will never be able to function on their own. And their are some who could if they were given help in the form of counseling, medications, etc. All I ever here people in this part of the country discuss is how expensive it would be to offer this kind of help. Even if it is costly, it should be offered purely for humanitarian reasons. But even if we ignore the humanitarian aspect, I don't know how to make these people (so called conservatives) understand that there is a huge financial cost to not doing it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have to think that in the long run that cost is greater.

You were correct earlier when you stated that we will have to make some difficult choices in this country. The interest on our deficit is so large that if we did not have it we could easily fund all of the social programs that we have now and still offer more.

I worry about extremists in both parties because our politics and our people have become so polarized that we can't get anything done. There was a time when we were able to accomplish some things by compromise. Now, no one wants to credit the other side with having any validity to their ideas. As for the republicans, they seem to be driven soley by ideology at this time. That is the death of rational thought, in my opinion.

I think Blankfein and the rest of the Obama group actually believed they were doing god's work. Non of the group is embarrassed, none has been charged with crimes. They all continue to get their claws on more and more of middle class money. Obama even wanted to replace Bernanke with Larry Summers, part of the Rubin Pack.

Why has the public not risen up in arms and made demands? Where are the Democrats? Who benefits by all the deafening silence?

“Rubinites demand to be put in charge of the Fed because they’ve caused so many more crises than Yellen that they have vastly more experience trying to deal with crises. When we were financial regulators we found it desirable to avoid creating crises. Summers and Rubin did not respond well to the crises they helped cause. Their “solutions” caused great misery in much of the world for decades.”